• Garry Breitkreuz: $120,200 annually, about $1.3 million lifetime (if he bought back his first seven years); $78,200 annually, $858,200 lifetime (if only in the plan from 2000 onward);

• Dick Harris: $118,200 annually, almost $1.2 million lifetime

Source: Canadian Taxpayers Federation

OTTAWA — In the cutthroat world of politics where talk is often cheap, a promise kept by a handful of former MPs is turning out to be very costly.

This week, as Parliament passed the Conservative government’s reforms to the lucrative pension plan for MPs and senators, the handful of original Reform MPs who kept their promise to forgo the parliamentary pension plan are out hundreds of thousands of dollars each.

Former MPs Preston Manning, Lee Morrison and Werner Schmidt are believed to be the only three original Reformers, from the class of 52 Reform MPs elected in 1993, who not only stuck to their commitment to opt out of what they said was a gold-plated pension plan, but won’t receive any parliamentary pension whatsoever.

Changes introduced by the Liberal government in 2000 forced all MPs into the parliamentary pension plan, but the few who refused to buy back their earlier years of service missed out on collecting the pension.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper also kept his word and chose not to buy back the time of his initial stint as an MP from 1993 to 1997, but has served long enough to now qualify for a sizeable pension for his time as MP and prime minister.

Some other original Reformers may have also remained out of the plan for their initial years (the information isn’t publicly released), but many would have served long enough beyond 2000 to qualify for a pension plan in which all MPs must now be enrolled. Members of Parliament qualify for a pension if they serve six years or longer.

Years after their initial commitment — and with a handful of original Reformers who remain in the Conservative caucus set to walk away in retirement with a financial windfall — the few who opted out of the plan and won’t receive any MP pension have each given up hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Morrison, who’s now retired and living in Calgary, said he doesn’t resent original Reform MPs who ignored their party’s promise and instead opted back into the pension plan, believing it was a personal decision everyone had to make.

“I guess they have to live with it. It’s a matter of when you shave or put on your lipstick, you’re looking at that face. How do you feel about it? I’m not here to judge,” Morrison, 80, said in an interview with Postmedia News.

Former Reform leader Manning (who served as MP from 1993 to 2002) is believed to have given up an annual pension today worth approximately $64,600 per year (when adjusted for inflation), meaning he has lost out on about $579,000 in pension benefits to date, estimates the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Schmidt, a former Kelowna-area MP (who served as Reform/Alliance/Conservative MP from 1993 to 2006) gave up an annual pension today worth about $45,800 per year. All told, he has lost out on approximately $256,000 in pension benefits to date, says the CTF.

Morrison, a former southern Saskatchewan Reform/Alliance MP (who served from 1993 to 2000) has lost an annual pension today worth approximately $37,400 per year (when adjusted for inflation). It’s estimated he has given up approximately $395,000 in pension benefits to date.

“I’m not lacerating myself about it,” Morrison added, noting he has saved for his retirement with RRSPs and sticking money in the mattress. “I’m not eating out of garbage cans.”

Morrison is irked, however, the newly passed pension reforms will only take effect a few years down the road, phased in between 2015 and 2017.

“The old guard can still make out like bandits. I don’t think that’s right,” he said. “It really does bug me that having filled the basket for themselves, they’re now putting in a reasonable scheme for people in the future, and they are not going to feel even the slightest bit of pain, and I don’t think that’s kosher, really I don’t.”

Manning was unavailable to comment.

Schmidt, who’s now 80 and retired in Edmonton, said he has never calculated how much money he has given up, but acknowledges the additional cash “would have been nice.”

“I didn’t do it for the money and I didn’t decline it for the money, either. I declined it on the basis of fairness and on the basis of what is right, and the demands on the public purse,” Schmidt said in an interview.

The former British Columbia MP said he doesn’t like to make much of the fact that he, unlike many others, stuck to his promise and rejected the pension, although he said it’s a source of pride among family and friends.

“These are all individual decisions and I’m certainly not prepared to commend myself or do anything otherwise to someone who didn’t. I made a promise and stuck to it, that’s it,” he said.

“You say what you’re going to do, well then you better do it, and that’s what I did.”

As part of the pension reforms that received royal assent this week, annual contributions for MPs will increase to nearly $39,000 by 2017 — from about $11,000 currently — bringing parliamentarians’ contributions up to a 50-50 split. After the next election, expected in 2015, MPs will also have to wait until age 65 to collect their full pension, instead of the current age of 55.

You say what you’re going to do, well then you better do it, and that’s what I did

Harper is also substantially cutting the additional pension plan for prime ministers who serve more than four years, in a move that will almost certainly cost him more than $1 million over the course of his lifetime.

The prime minister, however, is one of six remaining Conservative MPs in the Commons who were originally elected in the Reform class of 1993 (albeit he left politics for a few years in between) and stand to reap large annual pensions after initially assailing the plan for being too lucrative.

Harper, Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan, Minister of State Diane Ablonczy, Leon Benoit, Garry Breitkreuz and Dick Harris all stand to receive more than $100,000 annually from their MP pensions once they retire from politics, the taxpayers federation calculates.

Even after Manning, Morrison and Schmidt were forced into the plan beginning in 2000, none of them served for the required six years under the pension plan to qualify for the payout.

While Schmidt refuses to second-guess his decision, he said he didn’t realize at the time that he would also be giving up the generous post-politics benefits available to former MPs, including for health care.

“That would have been something that I really would liked to have had. However, that’s not to be,” he said.

Indeed, asked whether he has any regrets about his decision, his answer is a firm, but polite, “No.”

“I tried to live my life on the basis of principles and a belief system.”

Estimated pension payouts (to age 80) for remaining original Reform MPs (assuming they serve until 2015):

• Stephen Harper: $166,200 annually, more than $4 million lifetime (includes MP and prime ministerial pension to age 80)